A Flag of Truce Read online

  ‘Mr Pearce,’ Digby called. ‘The signal gun if you please, and prepare to hoist the orders to alter their heading to due east.’

  Farmiloe hooked on the flags, Martin Dent and Dysart were there to hoist them, the gunner had loaded his brass signal gun with a blank charge, and as he fired off his puff of white smoke, Digby put down his helm, this as Mr Neame trimmed the required sails, and HMS Faron came round on her new course in a trice. Flags eventually flew from Apollon and the other seventy-fours began their turn, more sluggish certainly, but not without grace.

  Across the intervening waters came the sound of cheering, for in making the change of course the five thousand men aboard those ships had no doubt now they were headed for the Straits of Gibraltar and home.

  High up on Mount Faron, Ralph Barclay had a telescope to his eye, watching the enemy vessels depart. He kept them in view long after they were out of sight of those at sea level, this being something that, as a naval port, made Toulon so formidable. No fleet could approach without they would be spotted while well offshore. He had concerns, of course; his wife and the need to make peace with her, but overriding all that was the certain knowledge that John Pearce was on that newly captured sloop, and that was good riddance.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Captain Barclay,’ said Admiral Sir William Hotham gravely, with only a glance at his secretary to ensure he was noting the words. ‘It is my sad duty to inform you that I have no choice but to convene a court martial to study and adjudicate on the events described in a complaint made by Lieutenant John Pearce. Namely, in the month of February this year, you did illegally press men, not of the sea, out of a place from which you were forbidden by statute to do so.’

  ‘Might I ask when this is to take place, sir?’

  ‘I think, Captain Barclay, the sooner the better. It cannot be pleasant to have a cloud of suspicion hanging over you. Five fellow-captains of the requisite seniority have been alerted to attend upon my flag this coming Thursday, and it is to be hoped that the proceedings will take no more than one day.’

  ‘I must then, sir, organise my defence.’

  ‘I have appointed Lieutenant Pigot to handle that.’

  ‘An excellent choice, sir, I am sure.’

  Barclay barely knew Pigot, except by reputation; he was held to be a choleric fellow who took that trait to extremes in his capacity as premier of HMS Theseus. He was a man who saw the cat o’ nine tails as the best means of maintaining discipline and Hotham was known to hold him in some regard; he always did with a strict disciplinarian. It was quite possible that Pigot would gain as much from defending Ralph Barclay as his principal would from being so defended.

  ‘I will require both you and Lieutenant Pigot to make yourselves available on Wednesday night, when you must reside aboard HMS Britannia in preparation for the court martial. In this, naturally, you have my permission to sleep out of your ship. The court will be convened at ten in the morning. Is there anything you wish to put to me?’

  ‘No, sir, I am entirely happy with whatever arrangements you propose.’

  ‘Good, then please be so good as to return to your duties.’

  If Ralph Barclay’s wife seemed less than happy, at least she was talking to him, as he explained why her presence at the court martial would not be in her best interests.

  ‘Surely, husband, you mean your best interests?’

  ‘No, madam, I do not. I have often tried to point out to you that naval service is sometimes, of necessity, harsh. Things may be said that will trouble your conscience, which is in its very nature, given your sex, of a gentle disposition.’

  ‘If it ever was, Captain Barclay, it is less so now. And might I remind you that my mother made it plain to me that a care for those less fortunate than ourselves was a duty we should never shun. I have, sad to say, held dying babies in my arms, expiring from want of nourishment. I have seen women pass over in the throes of childbirth, men mangled by accidents caused by being driven to unsafe work by uncaring masters and, as if that were not enough, I have assisted Mr Lutyens in treating wounded men on two very bloody occasions in the cockpit of this very ship.’

  How could he put it? He did not want her there because he wished to allude to the character of John Pearce, to paint him as a rabble-rouser tainted not only by his parentage but by his two years of contact with the Revolution, in short to so blacken him that his complaint would be seen in the light of revenge. Emily knew that to be short of the truth, though her husband suspected there was more than a grain of veracity in what was, in any case, his opinion of the fellow. The nightmare he harboured was of his own wife standing in Hotham’s cabin and denouncing such an accusation as false; she had embarrassed him before and might do so again.

  ‘What would be your reaction, Mrs Barclay, if I said plainly, that I do not want you present…’

  He never got a chance to add that she being there would not only distract him, but every member of the court, because Emily cut right across him. ‘I would say, husband, that at least you were being honest!’

  ‘I hope and pray that you think me so always.’

  She could not reply; to do so would reveal just how much she knew, so it was dissimulation that had her saying, ‘I think, sir, by your own lights, you see yourself as such.’

  It was his turn to be sharp. ‘I cannot imagine by which other light I am supposed to function?’

  She could not look at him; Emily had given him a chance to plead his career, to say that even if he had been in the wrong by any objective, non-service analysis, he had acted as a naval officer should. It might not be clear-cut to a landsman, but it was a necessary to a sailor, and essential to a man commanding a ship of war. If that was hard to see as right, it was at least justification.

  ‘I can see by your attitude you leave me no choice,’ Barclay continued, knowing as he spoke that the payment for his words would be a lengthy period of retribution. ‘I do not wish you to attend. There, I have said that which I sought to avoid.’

  ‘Never fear, husband,’ Emily replied, with biting irony. ‘I know you have been forced into this by my unbecoming intransigence, that it is all MY fault.’

  ‘I fear I must request the use of my cabin. I have people I need to interview, and my defending counsel, Lieutenant Pigot, is waiting on deck to aid me. If you wish I will arrange a boat to take you to the hospital.’

  ‘I think you are forgetting, Captain Barclay, that Mr Lutyens is no longer there. If you provide me with an escort, I will go for a promenade around the town.’

  ‘Shenton!’

  ‘Sir,’ the servant replied, trying to sound as if he was deep in his pantry rather than at the very door of his hutch.

  ‘Fetch Devenow, at the double.’

  ‘Double,’ Shenton said bitterly to himself as he went out on deck, ‘I ain’t doubled this ten year past, damned cheek.’

  He had not yet told Ralph Barclay of the way Burns had dished him; the time to do that was when there was some advantage to be gained, always a consideration with a master who could be mercurial, all sweetness one minute, and a damned tyrant the next. If he threatened to check the stock of his wine, for instance, that would be the time.

  The Premier, Glaister, was on deck, fair haired, skeleton-faced, to Shenton another Sawny Jock leaching off English goodwill, to whom he passed on the message. Various shouts brought forth Devenow, the bully and brute, who had once been put in his place by Michael O’Hagan; he had soon reasserted his clout once that man had shifted his berth. Most of the crew were afraid of him, first for his fists and second for his attachment to Ralph Barclay. To Devenow, the captain was in the order of a secular saint and could do no wrong. When he appeared, to be given his instructions, the man in question wondered if he needed coaching, for he would be a witness for the defence. Then he decided it was unnecessary; Devenow would say what he was told to say. As soon as Emily, parasol in hand, departed, he called in Pigot, a beetle-browed man whose bushy black eyebrows almost touched above
his nose. He had a saturnine complexion made more so by the broken flesh that denoted a heavy drinker, and a rasping voice that terrified the first person Ralph Barclay called in to his cabin.

  ‘It matters not, Mr Burns, that you were not with your uncle on that occasion. It is most pressing that you say you were.’

  ‘Mr Burns,’ said Ralph Barclay, in an unctuous voice, ‘or may I call you Toby, since we are related?’

  ‘Of course, sir, honoured sir.’

  ‘Let me explain to you what occurred.’ He looked at Pigot, who nodded to continue. ‘I openly admit that I went pressing men that night, but Toby, you will scarcely credit this, I gave the task of finding the right spot to Farmiloe, and though I hate to blacken the boy when he is not here, I fear he got his navigation of the river very wrong.’

  ‘I daresay that it easily done, sir,’ Burns replied, in a gap that left him in no doubt he was supposed to respond.

  ‘The problem is, Burns,’ said Pigot in his deep, rasping voice. ‘Farmiloe ain’t here, and it would never do for a Post Captain of the standing of your uncle to admit that he entrusted such a thing to a shaver, and did not check the bearings the lad was taking, without the perpetrator there to confess it first.’

  ‘Now you, young Toby, thanks in part to me, but very much because of your own actions, are highly regarded.’ The smile on Ralph Barclay’s face made Toby Burns think of a story his mother used to tell him about wolves devouring little lads who were naughty. ‘And if you was to admit to such an error, then it would be seen in a different light, would it not?’

  There was no need to outline the alternative; that the truth of what happened in the Trieux Estuary would become common knowledge. In the increasingly warped mind of Toby Burns, he had begun to blame John Pearce for all his troubles. If that sod had not been along they could have surrendered as soon as they encountered French authority, which is what he had longed to do; no fighting, food and drink provided, certainly uncomfortable, but no more so than service in a damned frigate.

  ‘You see, Toby,’ his Uncle Ralph continued, ‘Farmiloe landed me in hot water. I daresay the lad meant no harm, but instead of putting me ashore at Blackfriars by the bridge, he took me into the Liberties of the Savoy, which are not more than a few hundred paces apart.’

  ‘I can see,’ rasped Pigot, ‘that you know nothing of this place?’ A shake of the head had him continue. ‘It is a refuge for thieves and vagabonds, a home to those running from their obligations, the only hope they have of avoiding Newgate or the Fleet. There is not an honest man within its boundaries, yet no tipstaff can go in there and bring them to book.’

  ‘The old Savoy palace stood there,’ Ralph Barclay added, ‘the one-time home to the Duke of Lancaster, who was King Hal’s uncle. You know who he is, I am sure.’

  It was a relief to be able to answer a question without thinking. ‘Agincourt, sir. Who could not know it?’

  ‘Well, within the confines of that old palace is crown land. A click of Farmer George’s fingers would change the status of the place, but our king is not one to pass on a prerogative, however unseemly it is.’

  ‘That,’ Pigot insisted, with a look that accused his principal of wandering, ‘is where John Pearce and his ilk were skulking. Imagine that a person of that stripe, forced to hide from justice for crimes of which we know not what magnitude, has the effrontery to bring a case against a man of the standing of your uncle.’

  ‘Now if I can establish that I thought we was by Blackfriars, then the case is one of error, not assignment.’

  ‘And Pearce, sir?’

  ‘Will find his case void,’ growled Pigot. ‘Not that your uncle is guaranteed to escape censure, mind, but if he is found at fault, it will be for his errors and not his actions.’

  Toby Burns had in his mind’s eye then an image of his Aunt Emily, and the plain disapproval she had shown at that confessional dinner, but right in front of him now was the only man who could make his life bearable – his wife plainly would not try. Loyalty was a matter of the best thing for self, and damn John Pearce, to whom he owed nothing. His voice, when he spoke, was tremulous he knew, but regardless of that, the meaning was clear.

  ‘I can see, sir, that you would be embarrassed by a disclosure such as that which you have outlined, and nothing would distress me more than it should be so. I am sure, even the Good Lord would say to me, if he could speak directly, to look to where my duty lay.’

  ‘Good boy, Toby,’ said Ralph Barclay, patting him on the shoulder. ‘And do rest assured that my good offices are, as they have been in the past, entirely at the disposal of your future naval career.’

  ‘Will that be all, sir.’

  ‘Aye, lad. Be so good as to send to me Gherson.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Midshipman Farmiloe, ‘Apollon has hoisted a signal, but I cannot make head nor tail of it.’

  ‘Then,’ Pearce replied, ‘if you cannot, Mr Farmiloe, there is little point in referring it to me without you pass me the book.’

  They leafed through the signal book together, but it made no sense in any language, so Pearce went to Digby and asked permission to close. That given, Neame altered course and sails to take them up, hand over fist, to the leading French vessel. It was quite telling that with the other three vessels in its wake, none had chosen to repeat Moreau’s message. Coming up on her decorated stern, Pearce could see the French captain leaning over the taffrail, a speaking trumpet in his hand, and he called out as soon as he thought he could be heard.

  ‘Monsieur, I request that you come aboard, and bring the surgeon with you.’

  ‘You have someone needing medical attention?’

  ‘I fear I have someone who is past that, monsieur, but I wish to establish why it is so.’

  Pearce was aware of Henry Digby standing to his rear, and he turned to translate the request.

  ‘Odd,’ was the captain’s response. ‘If the fellow is dead, bury him.’

  ‘It is most important, monsieur,’ Moreau called out. ‘I do not assume it to be natural.’

  Pearce also translated that to a sceptical Digby. ‘That means that someone has been done away with, Pearce. If they are going to be killing each other I don’t see how we can intervene.’

  ‘I doubt Captain Moreau would ask for assistance if it was not required.’

  ‘Are you sure? The fellow might be a hysteric for all you know. Do not tell me you can form a judgement on his character from such a meagre acquaintance as a few shared glasses of wine.’

  There was a temptation then to tell Henry Digby that he had a very well-developed sense of the worth of people, formed by having met so many in his life, and having to make snap judgements of their character. The kind to trust and the kind to avoid were ingrained in John Pearce, who had shared company with both the elevated and the dregs, finding honesty and chicanery were not a matter of a man’s earthly worth or his social standing. He had, it was true, only briefly met Gerard Moreau, but he trusted him and suspected, in better circumstances, they might well have become firm friends.

  ‘Can I say, sir, that I feel we have a duty to support Captain Moreau if he asks us to. I have the impression he would not do so lightly.’

  Digby shook his head slowly, but it was not denial so much as with wonder. ‘I cannot put this in the log, Pearce. Lord Hood would flay me alive for downright disobedience.’

  ‘The fact shall certainly never be brought out by me.’

  ‘Very well, you may take a boat and Mr Lutyens and see what our Frenchman wants.’

  Pearce had a moment of pure regret then; he had never been much good at slippery gangways, and now he was going to face two, one of which was on a capital ship. As for Lutyens, Pearce could easily imagine that he was an expert by comparison to the surgeon. Good support would be called for. That was when he also considered the notion of danger. He was unlikely to face any of that aboard Moreau’s vessel, but he could not be certain.

  ‘Costello, haul in the cutter if you please and fetc
h it alongside.’ Looking round, he saw O’Hagan and went forward to address him quietly. ‘Michael, arm yourself and come with me.’

  ‘We got trouble, John-boy?’

  ‘I’ve got to get off this tub and on to that one over yonder, and that is trouble in itself, but when I go aboard I would like you at my back.’

  ‘Consider it done.’

  Lutyens had been called and was now on deck in a thick coat, with a small leather bag by his feet. ‘Martin, Mr Lutyens’ bag, and be so good as to help him into the boat.’

  Martin Dent was not one to miss such an opportunity. ‘Now come along, sir,’ he said, taking Lutyens’ arm as if he was old and infirm, ‘an’ you just lean on me an’ we will get you to where you are to go.’

  ‘Remind me, Martin Dent,’ snapped Lutyens, ‘that the next time I treat you it should be painful.’

  ‘Can’t get more so than it is now, your honour,’ Martin replied, which had everyone in earshot laughing.

  ‘What are you talking about, man?’

  ‘Get on with it, Dent,’ said Pearce, who half feared that Martin would tell him his ministrations were far from gentle, that the crew would avoid him for anything minor, preferring the pain they had to that they would receive. He was a good surgeon, but he was also a careless one.

  The sloop was sailing along at the same speed as Apollon, and the green water that lay between them had a disturbed quality that made Pearce queasy: this was going to be no easy passage.

  ‘Mr Pearce,’ called Neame. ‘With the captain’s permission I will head-reach Apollon afore we cast you off, which will give you a chance to cross the divide as she comes up on you.’

  ‘Make it so, Mr Neame,’ Digby called, and the orders were issued to reset some sails and haul on others to get them drawing better, which brought an immediate increase in the ship’s speed. Within ten minutes they were ahead of the 74-gunner, and the crew of oarsmen were in the cutter, just waiting for their passengers. Behind him Pearce could hear Michael muttering a papist prayer.